Kidnapping: a Modern Definition John L

University of California, Hastings College of the Law UC Hastings Scholarship Repository Faculty Scholarship 1985 Kidnapping: A Modern Definition John L. Diamond UC Hastings College of the Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.uchastings.edu/faculty_scholarship Part of the Criminal Law Commons, and the Criminal Procedure Commons Recommended Citation John L. Diamond, Kidnapping: A Modern Definition, 13 Am. J. Crim. L. 1 (1985). Available at: http://repository.uchastings.edu/faculty_scholarship/95 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Faculty Publications UC Hastings College of the Law Library Diamond John Author: John L. Diamond Source: American Journal of Criminal Law Citation: 13 Am. J. Crim. L. 1 (1985). Title: Kidnapping: A Modern Definition Originally published in AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW. This article is reprinted with permission from AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW and University of Texas School of Law. Articles Kidnapping: A Modern Definition John L. Diamond* I. INTRODUCTION Although kidnapping is an infamous crime, perceived by the pub- lic with both dread and morbid curiosity,1 and the subject of fine liter- ature,' it is also a crime that has eluded meaningful definition.' The common law offense is now codified in state penal laws, but the lan- guage in these statutes is frequently ambiguous and potentially overbroad.4 * Associate Professor of Law, University of California, Hastings College of the Law. B.A., Yale College; Dipl. Crim., Emmanuel College, Cambridge University; J.D., Columbia Law School. The author would like to express his appreciation for the excellent research assistance of William Green, Michael V. Hoffman, Mark A. Landis, Daven G. Lowhurst, and Joseph R. Ramrath. The author also expresses his gratitude to Professors David I. Levine, Scott E. Sundby and Louis B. Schwartz of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. 1. According to a study by Ernest Alix, the New York Times reported 1,703 cases of kidnapping occurring entirely or in part in the United States between 1874 and 1974, including 236 "classic kidnapping[s] for ransom." E.K. ALIX, RANSOM KIDNAPPING IN AMERICA, 1874-1974 166-67 (1978). It has been suggested that the development of the automobile and organized crime during the prohibition years led to an increase in ransom kidnapping in the late 1920's and 1930's. Id. at 43-49, 67-77; see also, Kanter, Kidnapping,in 3 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CRIME AND JUSTICE 993-94 (1983); Note, A Rationale of the Law of Kidnapping, 53 COLUM. L. REV. 540 (1953). One of the most infamous kidnappings of this century took place on March 1,1932, when the infant son of Charles Lindberg was abducted from his home and eventually killed. State v. Hauptmann, 115 N.J.L. 412, 180 A. 809 (1935). However, the alleged kidnapper, Bruno Rich- ard Hauptman, was not prosecuted for kidnapping. At that time, in New Jersey, kidnapping was only a high misdemeanor and therefore the statutory felony murder rule could only be invoked if the prosecutor could find some other crime that would supply the necessary felony. Since the stealing of a child could not sustain a burglary conviction at common law, the prosecutor chose to allege that Hauptmann had intended to steal the child's sleeping suit. The prosecutor was successful and Hauptmann was executed. Id.; see also Kanter, supra, at 993, 994-95. 2. See, eg., R.L. STEVENSON, KIDNAPPED (1886). 3. See MODEL PENAL CODE § 212.1 comment at 220-22 (1980). 4. For example, the New York Court of Appeals could at one point do no better than to merely "explain" that the New York statute was intended to cover "kidnapping in the conven- tional sense in which that term has now come to have acquired meaning." People v. Levy, 15 HeinOnline -- 13 Am. J. Crim. L. 1 1985-1986 AM. J. CRIM. LAW Vol. 13:1 (1985) The original concept of kidnapping was clear. As Perkins defines it, "[a]t common law kidnapping was ... the forcible abduction or stealing away of a man, woman or child from his own country and sending him into another."5 Kidnapping was originally a misdemeanor punishable with a fine, short imprisonment and pillory.6 It developed out of the related misdemeanor of false imprisonment7 and has been described as the "most aggravated form of false imprisonment."' The term kidnapping emerged in English case law towards the N.Y.2d 159, 164-65, 204 N.E.2d 842, 844, 256 N.Y.S.2d 793, 796 (1965). See also, Annot., 43 A.L.R. 3d 699 (1972 & Supp. 1984). The federal law on kidnapping requires generally that the victim be "willfully transported in interstate or foreign commerce." 18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(1976 & Supp. 1985). The statute also covers persons kidnapped within special maritime, territorial, and aircraft jurisdictions of the United States, as well as certain foreign and government officials. These sections do not require interstate or foreign transportation of the victim. 18 U.S.C. §§ 1201(a)(2), (a)(3), (a)(4), 351(b), 1751(b)(1976 & Supp. 1985). The statute also provides a rebuttable presumption that a victim detained for 24 hours has been transported in interstate or foreign commerce. 18 U.S.C. § 1201(b)(1976 & Supp. 1985). But see U.S. v. Moore, 571 F.2d 76 (2d Cir. 1978), holding the rebuttable presumption unconstitutional. The general requirement of interstate or foreign transportation substantially limits the occa- sions when federal kidnapping charges can be applied for abductions involving short amounts of asportation. See also related federal provisions on hostage taking for the purpose of compelling a third person or a governmental organization from doing or abstaining from doing any act (18 U.S.C. § 1203 (1976 & Supp. 1985)), enticement into slavery (18 U.S.C. § 1583 (1976 & Supp. 1985)), and abductions associated with attempting to avoid apprehension for bank robbery and related crimes (18 U.S.C. § 2113 (1976 & Supp. 1985)). 5. R. PERKINS & R. BOYCE, CRIMINAL LAW 229 (3d ed. 1982). The term "kidnapping" according to the Oxford English Dictionary was originally used to refer to stealing or "carrying off (children or others) in order to provide servants or labourers for the American plantations." 5 OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY 691 (1933). The word is a compound of "nap" (related entymologically to the word of "nab"), meaning snatch, and "kid," which probably originally meant any indentured servant brought to the American colonies, including but not limited to children. Napier, Detention Offenses at Common Law, in RESHAPING THE CRIMINAL LAW 190, 194-96 (1978); See MODEL PENAL CODE § 212.1 comment at 210-20; See also Note, From Blackstone to Inni: A JudicialSearch for a Definition of Kidnapping, 16 SUFFOLK U.L. REv. 367, 368-74 (1982). 6. EAsr, I E.H. PLEAS OF THE CROWN 429-30 (1803). 7. Perkins defines false imprisonment as "the unlawful confinement of a person." PER- KINS & BOYCE, supra note 5, at 224. The common law crime of false imprisonment can be traced back to the Magna Carta. Lambert, Kidnappingand Imprisonment at Common Law, 10 CAM- BRIA L. REv. 20, 21 (1978-79). S. EAST, supra note 6, at 429, 430. See PERKINS & BOYCE, supra note 5, at 229 n.2 (and accompanying text, concurring with East). Perkins also argues that an infant can be a victim of false imprisonment. Id., at 224. But see Williams, The Kidnapping of Children, NEW L.J. 278 (1984), suggesting that: whereas false imprisonment involves an issue of the victim's consent (so that it is virtu- ally impossible to imprison a baby falsely), a charge of kidnapping a young child involves an inquiry into the consent of the parent or guardians. If this is so, East's description of kidnapping as an aggravated false imprisonment is true only for persons beyond the age of (presumably) 14. HeinOnline -- 13 Am. J. Crim. L. 2 1985-1986 Kidnapping end of the 17th century. It was used to describe the forced recruitment of labor for the American colonies.9 Contemporary statutes have changed the original common law crime in key ways. Kidnap- ping is now a felony punishable in some states by life imprisonment. In addition, the requirement that the victim must be transported out of the country has been abandoned. Although state laws still define kidnapping in terms of movement of the victim, there is much uncertainty regarding the amount of movement necessary to elevate what might simply be an assault with brief confinement to the serious crime of kidnapping. This confusion exists even in states where numerous appellate decisions have pur- ported to clarify the crime. 10 9. Napier reports "the earliest occurrence of the word" in the English law reports ap- peared in Boly, (1686) comb. 10, although Dessigny, (1682) T. Raym 474, decided four years earlier, used the term "spirited away" and probably is "also an instance of the offense." Napier, supra note 5, at 194-95. While the facts in Baily were not reported, in Dessigny a student at Merchant Taylor's School was transported to Jamaica and the defendant was fined 500 pounds. Id. The practice of forced recruitment of labor for the American colonies ended as colonial independence approached and by the 1770's, according to Napier, the crime of kidnapping "enter[ed] a long period of legal oblivion in England." Id.

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